Thursday, August 07, 2014

A Few Reflections on the Common Core Wars

Monday’s Politico story
on the messaging battle over the Common Core has kicked up another
round of recriminations, particularly on the Right. What particularly
caught my eye was my good friend Rick Hess’s
allegation that supporters of the Core (myself among them) were
expressing hubris and vanity because we’ve decided that we need our
arguments to be more “emotional.”

Ugh. Those are two qualities I certainly don’t want to be associated
with. This might be a good time to step back—sans emotion—and take stock
of where we’re at.

Get another cup of coffee; this is going to be a long one. I plan to tackle three big topics:

1. Who’s winning?
2. Which concerns about the Common Core do I see as legitimate?
3. How can we supporters of the Core respond constructively to those concerns?

Who’s winning?

The current narrative—pushed by Politico and other media
outlets—is that the anti–Common Core forces have momentum on their side.
Glenn Beck is making money from movie-ticket and book sales. Republican
governors are running scared. Red states are starting to topple.

Michael J. Petrilli

This is all true, and there’s little doubt that in the “air war” over
the Common Core—especially in the conservative media—we’re getting our
butts kicked. Furthermore, when it comes to grassroots organizing, the
tea-party groups (like FreedomWorks) are much more effective. They have
the energy, the passion, and the ground troops.

Which makes it all the more remarkable that somehow, when we look at
the scoreboard, the pro–Common Core side is still way out ahead. (Let me
be clear: I’m not declaring “mission accomplished.” The politics around
this remain precarious, and the scoreboard is anything but frozen.)

But I’d put the score today at 42–4–3–1. Forty-two states are still
on board with the standards, though plenty (including Indiana) have
rebranded them. Four states (Alaska, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia)
never adopted them in the first place. Three states (North and South
Carolina and Missouri) are currently going through a review process that
will result in new standards—though, like Indiana’s, they may turn out
to be Common Core in new clothes. This leaves just one state, Oklahoma,
that has actually repealed the standards. (Of course there’s Louisiana,
where Bobby Jindal—or, more precisely, Bobby Jindal’s presidential aspiration—is
up against the Republican legislature, the Jindal-appointed state
school board, and the Jindal-appointed board of regents. We’ll see how
that one ends.)

So for all of the screaming and fighting and bombastic headlines, the
opponents of the Common Core have, to date, managed to knock off only
Oklahoma, which by many accounts is the most conservative state in the
land. That’s worth keeping in mind.

Which concerns about the Common Core are legitimate?

I’ve never argued that decisions to adopt (or retain) the Common Core
are a slam dunk or that you have to be dumb or crazy to oppose them. As
with any policy issue, there are plenty of pros and cons. Personally, I
find that the pros far outweigh the cons, beginning with the original
Fordham conclusion that the standards themselves, on their merits, are
superior in content and rigor to those that three-quarters of the states
were using in 2010. But I don’t pretend that downsides don’t exist. So
let’s discuss them.

Legitimate concern #1: The federal role

My experience traveling to red states to testify on the Common Core
has shown me that about 98 percent of this debate—on the right, at
least—is about federal overreach. (I’m not being particularly
perceptive; the “Fed-Ed” buttons at the hearings gave this away.) As a
conservative, I too worry about the federal government overstepping its
bounds. There are the constitutional concerns. There’s the particular
worry about Washington getting involved in curricular issues—book lists
and such—which is definitely appropriate (as are the laws proscribing
this from happening). There’s the practical matter that, on education at
least, the feds tend to screw up so much of what they touch; that’s for
a variety of reasons but mostly because they’re too far removed from
the actual work of schools. As I’ve long said, the federal government
can make states and districts do things they don’t want to do, but it
can’t make them do those things well. And in education reform, few
things are worth doing without quality.

And there’s no doubt that the federal government has played a role on
Common Core—via Race to the Top and via funding for the Common
Core–aligned assessments.

Where I grow frustrated with Common Core opponents is when they
exaggerate the federal role in this endeavor and minimize the key role
played by the states. Take, for example, this “action plan,”
disseminated to attendees at the Glenn Beck movie-fest. It urges,
“Educate yourself so you can educate others!” And starts with this
remarkable statement:

Get to know the US Department of Education’s Blueprint for Reform. This is where the standards were born.

What?!? This is where the standards were born? Sorry, nope, not even
close. The standards were born when the Council of Chief State School
Officers, under the leadership of former Kentucky state supe Gene
Wilhoit, decided to respond to the clarion call (from Fordham, the Hunt
Institute, and many others) to do something about the low standards and
ridiculously easy tests of the No Child Left Behind era and when state
superintendents like Eric Smith of Florida and Chris Koch of Illinois
decided that they could develop stronger standards, for less money, if
they worked together.

Yes, as Neal McCluskey has doggedly pointed out for years, some
Common Core supporters (including some state supes) urged the federal
government to create “incentives” for state adoption of these higher
standards. Upon reflection, that was a huge mistake. But there’s little
doubt that the impetus and energy for this movement started in the
states, long before Barack Obama became president.

So I concede that the federal government has played a role. In my
view, it’s been a fairly limited role, but I appreciate that, for some
conservatives, any federal involvement is too much. And I can relate to
the worry that this opens the door to the Obama administration (or the
Clinton administration) getting deeper into the day-to-day routines of
our schools, something we must vigorously resist. (And not just when it
comes to the Common Core, as I’ve written.)

Legitimate concern #2: The standards aren’t perfect

Opponents are right: they aren’t perfect. We said as much
back in 2010. But they’re pretty darn good and much better than what
most states had before. Yes, they can absolutely be improved. That’s why
we’re supportive of what states like Florida have done to augment the
standards.

There’s a worry, for example, that some schools will interpret the
standards as a ceiling instead of a floor, especially in math, where
they end at Algebra II. Creating additional standards for high-achieving
math students who are gunning for selective colleges and/or STEM
careers makes a ton of sense. Likewise, some people feel strongly that
cursive writing should continue to be taught. Fair enough—states can add
standards for that (and some have done so).

But opponents have grossly exaggerated the imperfections of the
standards. Take Sandy Stotsky’s continued criticism of the English
language arts standards and her charge that they push elementary schools
to squeeze out literature. That’s total baloney—the
“plain language” of the standards says that the early grades should
focus primarily on literary texts. Some critiques of the standards,
then, I find to be more fact-based than others.

Legitimate concern #3: Confusing, convoluted textbooks

Finally, I have complete sympathy for Louis C.K.
and other parents whose kids are bringing home math homework that is
indecipherable. My own view is that the standards themselves aren’t the
problem and that well-designed textbooks (like Singapore Math)
can and do teach the Common Core in a straightforward way. But some
publishers have totally botched it, misreading the standards and/or
creating materials that are vastly more complicated than they need to
be. (Sounds familiar.)
This doesn’t help the parents (or their kids) who are subjected to
such materials and struggling with math homework. When those parents
complain to the teachers, and when the teachers say it’s because of
Common Core and that the Common Core was mandated by some far-away state
official (or even the feds, or Bill Gates, or Pearson…), the result is
frustration, a feeling of powerlessness, and eventually anger. All
totally understandable.

So we supporters shouldn’t dismiss these legitimate concerns out of
hand. What can we do about them? Is it about better “messaging”? Or is
it about substance?

How to respond to the legitimate concerns

In my view, the federalism concern is the one that carries the most
urgency, since it’s driving almost all of the backlash on the right.
(And while the teacher unions and other parts of the left are restive,
that hasn’t translated into actual threats of repeal in any blue
states.)

But frankly, it’s also the hardest one to fix. We can’t go back and
undo Race to the Top; we can’t take away the millions of federal dollars
that have already flowed to PARCC and Smarter Balanced. And, as has
become painfully clear, Arne Duncan and his minions—not to mention the
White House—seem all but uncontrollable in their passion to make Common
Core resemble their creation even when it wasn’t.

Secretary Duncan could still take a lot of heat out of opponents’
arguments by declaring that the federal government is going to stay a
million miles away from the Common Core. Yet he may be about to make
matters worse. Will the Department now revoke Oklahoma’s ESEA waiver
because the state no longer has “college- and career-ready
standards”—even though this requirement is never mentioned in ESEA and
is probably illegal if not unconstitutional?

Duncan and his supporters will argue that they’re just setting
parameters around ESEA flexibility, much as Margaret Spellings did, but
that’s not the point. Even if they have the authority to revoke
Oklahoma’s waiver or those of other states that pull back from the
Common Core, they should have the good sense not to do so. By punishing
Oklahoma (or any other jurisdiction) for repudiating the Common Core,
they would cement the view—and the reality—that the federal government is driving this train.

Another looming disaster is the Department’s plans to “peer review”
the new assessments under development—PARCC and Smarter Balanced but
also the other exams that some states plan to use to assess student
performance in relation to the Common Core. In this case, they have
statutory authority to make sure a state’s tests are aligned to its
standards and are reliable and valid. And some in the Department are
said to see this as an opportunity to ensure that the new tests are of
high quality. That may be, but again, they should use good judgment and
punt on the whole thing or simply turn it over to the state
superintendents, because of the obvious political sensitivities.

***

Addressing the other legitimate concerns is more within the control
of those outside of the federal government. States should follow
Florida’s lead and add to the Common Core to make them even better. And
all of us need to get busy helping districts make better decisions
around textbooks and the like. It’s taken a while for truly aligned
Common Core materials to come onto the market, but it’s finally
happening. In coming months, Fordham will point to some good examples of
textbooks and other instructional materials that are aligned and high
quality; other organizations are also gearing up (better late than
never) to review curricular materials. This should help; there’s no
reason any school should use a textbook that teaches math (or any
subject) in a convoluted way.

We’ll also need to help parents and teachers understand that they
aren’t powerless in the face of bad textbooks—that their own local
communities still have the authority to decide which instructional
materials will be used and that they don’t have to settle for schlock.

***

Note that I haven’t made the case that we supporters mostly need to
work on our “messaging.” It’s certainly true that much of the energy
coming from the Right is stemming from emotional arguments (including
justified anger at Barack Obama over a whole host of issues). Getting
our own supporters equally fired up is worth pursuing, not via warm and
fuzzy TV ads but by reminding the country what this fight is all about:
fixing an education system that continues to tell kids they are doing
fine until they find themselves in remedial courses or without a decent
paying job.

Mostly, though, we need to address the legitimate concerns with
action. As the NGA’s Richard Laine likes to say, the best advocacy
strategy is solid implementation. My earnest hope is that the
politicians—from Arne Duncan to Bobby Jindal and everyone in
between—stop misbehaving and give educators the room to focus on the
real work at hand: selecting good curricular materials, improving
teaching and learning, and getting ready for the much more rigorous
tests that will be given nine months from now. All we are saying is give
peace a chance.

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So far as we know, we only get one lifetime. So, when I "retired" in 2004, after 31-years in public education I wanted to do something different. I wanted to teach, write and become a student again. I have since spent a decade in higher ed.

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On the campaign trail...with my wife Rita

An action shot: The Principal...as a much younger man.

Faculty Senate Chair

Serving as Mace Bearer during the Inauguration of Michael T. Benson as EKU's 12th president.

Teaching

EDF 203 in EKU's one-room schoolhouse.

Professin'

Lecturing on the history of Berea College to Berea faculty and staff, 2014.

Faculty Regent

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